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From: jlw@umn-ucc.UUCP (Jeff Woolsey)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Phone Phlames
Message-ID: <1066@umn-ucc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Apr-84 12:23:32 EST
Article-I.D.: umn-ucc.1066
Posted: Fri Apr  6 12:23:32 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Apr-84 07:11:44 EST
Organization: Univ. of Minn. Computer Center, Minneapolis
Lines: 52


OK, time to flame about several phone subjects at once.  Here goes:

Equipment configuration:
	I have 3-way calling and Call Waiting on my home phone.  I have 
connected a Heathkit Demon Dialer to it, and a Penril DCD 300/1200 modem.  Our 
site has recently moved the dial-in Vadic modems from the Sun to the Tellabs 
network. 

Event sequence:
	I was dialed in to the system, peaceably reading news, when I received
a phone call. The Penril does not like the Call Waiting tone, so it hangs up.
It then detects the phone ringing and answers it.  By this time I have rescued
the caller from the scream of the modem.  Meanwhile, the Demon Dialer also
heard the Call Waiting tone, and decided to forget what the last number dialed
was.  Also, the Tellabs network does not forward hangups to the host, so my
terminal session hung around.
	I answered the call, and determined quickly that I was listening to a
tape (some hiss and the tunnel effect) [Evidently there is no law here in
Minnesota requiring a human being to obtain my permission to play a tape at 
me.].  I decided I didn't want to listen to a tape (nor talk to one), so I hung
up, and picked up the phone again to redial the system.  The tape was still 
there!  I leaned on the switchhook a little longer, and the call still did not
go away!  I then called my phone from the other line in the house, hoping that
I would be able to hang up on myself.  When I picked up my phone again, I heard
nothing, but I can't be sure if that was the other line I was listening to, or
if the tape wanted me to say something.  Anyway, I was able to hang up at this
point, so I reconnected to the Sun, killed off the processes for the terminal
I used to be on, and sat down to compose this flame.

	I used to have Call Forwarding, but I cancelled it because I rarely
used it.  As long as I'm mentioning Custom Calling, there are other features
that would be handy.  I'd like to be able to access my phone remotely so that
I could forward my calls from the where I am to where I'm going to be, without
having to go home to do that. I'd like a feature that was a combination of
Call Forwarding and Call Waiting such that calls would be forwarded to another
phone when mine is busy. (That's a user-programmable rotary, isn't it?)

In summary, then, these decreasingly annoy me:
  1)  Not being able to hang up on incoming calls immediately.  The modems on
      the various machines at work can do it, why can't I?
  2)  The Demon Dialer reacting to the Call Waiting tone, when the salesman
      told me it would not be affected.
  3)  Junk phone calls.
  4)  Networks that aren't completely transparent to both ends.
  5)  Unimaginative Custom Calling Features.
-- 
				Jeff Woolsey
				University of Minnesota Computer Center
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